Flashes Through Time
by erttheking
Summary: Moments from the life of Stocke and Raynie as they slowly grow closer and closer. Moments that take place alongside Stocke's journey to save the world. A series of snippets. Done as a request for a very dear friend


Flashes through Time

Author's Note: This story was something that I promised that I would write for a friend a LONG time ago, and I decided to finally follow through on it. Hope my writing doesn't disappoint her TOO much. I mean it's probably going to disappoint you guys. :D I'm sorry, the way this story will be framed, you pretty much won't get it if you haven't played Radiant Historia.

XXXXX

Stocke's hand flitted downward and idly grasped the hilt of his sword. He felt safe knowing that it was still there. Feeling safe was a luxury, now more than ever Granorg was on the move. Their forces had marched out of the Sand Fortress and they were sweeping through any opposition that they could throw at them. Their forward scouts had just reached Lazvil Hills, which only put them a few days march from the capital.

He had heard General Hugo boasting how no matter how grim things seemed, those who believed in the Prophet Noah would be spared. Stocke found himself unable to share his enthusiasm. Granorg's offensive hadn't been so much as stalled by Alistel's counter attacks. If they weren't stopped, they would move to sack Alistel and finally end this seventy year war.

Heiss had just issued him a mission, however. One that could possibly save them from certain defeat. An agent of his had been gathering intelligence on Granorg's movements, documenting the status and shape of their formations. Heiss wanted Stocke to bring this information back safe and sound in order to prepare an ambush that would shatter Granorg's offensive. It was a desperate gamble, but one Stocke was willing to take. Although Heiss had included an unexpected condition.

Unable to help himself, he turned his head and looked. They were still there, sitting at a workbench and maintaining their weapons. Mercenaries, although they had strong ties to Alistel. Marco and Raynie. They had been ordered by Heiss to join him in recovering the informant.

Stocke shifted uncomfortably from where he was leaning against the armory wall. He had been working as a solo operative for Heiss for quite some time, with stable results. He wasn't sure why now Heiss had hired sellswords to assist him. Logically he understood the benefits behind strength in numbers, but at the same time the idea of him leading others in battle was something that made him feel uncomfortable. He had not played the role of leader for a long time, and when he had, things had, in Stocke's on words, "gone terribly."

" _If I'm working as part of a team, then someone else should be the leader,"_ he thought to himself as dark memories creeped into his head.

"Hey. Hey! You there?" Stocke nearly flinched as he slipped out of his train of thought. Raynie was standing in front of him, gently but forcefully tapping on his shoulder. "All of our gear checks out, we're ready to go whenever you are.

Stocke nodded stiffly, looking at Raynie. There was a smile on her face, uncertain and nervous, but a genuine one all the same. " _Stocke"_ he thought. " _Whatever happens, just get them home alive this time."_

XXXXX

"So, the next mission is going to take us to Granorg huh?" Raynie said. Stocke nodded dumbly. He was barely listening. Both of them were resting in Lazvil Hills after a long day's travel while Marco gathered firewood. There was so much bouncing around the inside of his head right now. The book that Heiss had given him, one that he thought had been nothing more than a dusty old tome, had been something called the White Chronicle.

Now he had to stop the world from ending and he had to travel through time to do it? And there was ANOTHER Chronicle out there and the person using it was trying to actively speed up the world's destruction? He was already bouncing back and forth between a timeline where he stayed under Heiss and a timeline where he joined his friend Rosch in the field. He had no idea how any of this was supposed to actually stop the desertification that was slowly consuming the world. What if he had to end up bouncing back and forth between dozens of alternate timelines in order to finally find a solution? Would that even work?

"So, we're really going to be killing the princess huh?" Raynie said. That was enough to break Stocke out of his thoughts. Assassination wasn't something he was unfamiliar with, but he had never been sent after a target this high profile before

"Listen," he said. "Caution takes priority above everything else on this mission. Granorg still holds the Sand Fortress and as a result the border. Getting through that alone is going to be a challenge. If anything looks like it's going wrong, we pull back. Not only would it be counterproductive to our mission if they knew we were coming, we can't complete our mission if we're dead."

Raynie gave a wry smile. "Well death is something I'd rather avoid." It was an innocent remark, but it struck Stocke much deeper than she could possibly know. Unbidden into his mind came images of her. Her dead broken body lying on the ground in Lazvil Hills, Marco right beside her. An absolute giant of a man, clad from head to toe in armor, stood over them, an axe as large as he was stained with blood. The man advances, carelessly stepping on Raynie's chest. Something snapped under the sheer weight of the man's body and armor.

"Hey, you ok?" Raynie asked. "You look like someone just stabbed you in the gut."

Stocke fought the urge to swallow. They had been ambushed on the last mission. He had been able to use the White Chronicle to prevent their deaths, but that didn't change the fact that he had seen both her and Marco slaughtered. "Just bad memories," he said. It was technically true.

Raynie put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "Anyone who's been in this war has those. I understand. You don't need to say anything, I know we want to keep these moments to ourselves." Stocke nodded. A part of him wanted to tell her, but he was forbidden from telling anyone else about the nature of the White Chronicle. At the same time, he couldn't help but wonder how cruel it might be to tell someone about their death. He swallowed. He had no idea what to do.

"So, do you think if we kill the princess we can turn the war around?" Raynie asked. "I mean Heiss must think so. Why else would he tell us to do it?" She frowned. "I'm just asking because if I were the one calling the shots I'd have Queen Protea be the target. She's the one giving orders, I've barely heard anything about the princess. She probably doesn't have much leadership experience."

She had a point. Protea was the head of the royal family with her husband dead. It made more sense to cut off the head of the serpent Though he had never known Heiss to make a decision without a good reason to back it up. Stocke paused. Then again considering Heiss had given him the White Chronicle, he had a sickly feeling in the back of his mind that Heiss knew far more than he let on.

"It might be because Queen Protea isn't of noble or royal birth," he said. "The late king married a commoner. The princess is the last person in Granorg that has true royal blood in her veins. If she dies, the Granorg royal family is doomed to die out. It would probably start a succession crisis, with noble families fighting to see who could become the new ruler. Protea isn't very popular, once that last shred of legitimacy falls away, she'll just have a worthless crown."

Raynie let out a small snort. "Sounds like Granorg isn't that mighty if one person dying can cause it all to fall apart."

"And yet we only avoided losing to them by a hairs breadth," Stocke said grimly.

Raynie blinked. "Yeah. When you put it that way," she said glumly.

"Still, we haven't lost yet," he said. He didn't want to lie to Raynie but he didn't want to make her lose hope either. "One fell swoop and Granorg will tear itself apart from within."

Raynie gave him a weak smile. "Something to look forward to."

XXXXX

Stocke couldn't stop himself from shaking. Bodies were scattered all around him, gashes in their sides, arrows sticking out of their chests, a few of them missing their heads. Rosch's unit had been entirely wiped out. Someone had betrayed them, sent them on an assault that was doomed to fail. Somehow he had managed to get Rosch back to the Sand Fortress, barely alive, but he was the only survivor.

This was the fourth time this had happened. He had tried again and again to prevent this, but no matter how far he went back, no matter how soon he managed to get reinforcements sent after Rosch, they were always too late. Rosch was the only survivor. Three hundred lives were wiped out in the blink of an eye.

In the infirmary of the Sand Fortress, he watched Rosch as doctors desperately tended to his wounds. His normally proud face was sunken and pale, his bright red armor lay scattered on the floor, massive openings in nearly every part and his torso was covered in blood soaked bandages. The thing that disturbed Stocke the most however was Rosch's left arm. His cybernetic gauntlet, the pinnacle of Alistel's technology, cracked and hanging loosely at his side.

Rosch let out a weak, pathetic mean. Something inside of Stocke snapped. He couldn't be in this room anymore, he couldn't look at Rosch like this. He had to be somewhere else, anywhere else, anyWHEN else. Without even thinking, he reached into his coat and ripped out the White Chronicle. He forced it open and stopped on a random page, without even looking at it, and pressed his finger down. Light engulfed him, and he felt a sensation very similar to that of sliding down a very wet and slippery tunnel. Before he had even had time to think, it had ended. He was somewhere else now. Somewhen else.

Looking around, he realized that he was still in the Sand Fortress but that he was in his quarters now. He slid the Chronicle back into his jacket, his hands still trembling as he did. The sight of Rosch, broken and dying, were still burned into his mind. As well as the faces of every single dead men under his command. He had barely known any of them, but they had died because he hadn't been able to save them. He had been the second in command. He had failed as a leader. Again.

There was a knock on the door behind him. "Hey Stocke?" It was Raynie. Slowly, the door slid up. "The Marshal wanted me to let you know that it's supper time. To celebrate taking the Sand Fortress back she's ordered double rations. We better get going otherwise everything will be cold by the time we…Stocke?"

Stocke tried as hard as he could to keep it all inside, but he just couldn't. Unwanted and unwelcome, tears began to trickle out of his eyes. "I just," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. This was almost as bad as watching Rosch a hair's breadth away from death. He wanted nothing more than to just tell someone, anyone, what was really happening. But he had been warned against it, and he doubted that the warning was just an idle one.

"Everything," he said helplessly. "It's all just so much. I just can't…" he trailed off, hating every second of it. These vague terms were all that he could say. Worthless. Worse than worthless. He struggled to speak, trying to think of something, anything, to say. Before he could, something warm pressed into him. Looking down, he realized with a jolt that Raynie was hugging him.

"It's ok," she said softly. "Whatever it is, you've got friends you can rely on. Marco, Rosch and me. We're all here whenever you need us." Slowly, uncertainly, as if he was trying to remember how to do it, Stocke reached up and hugged her back. For that short moment, the pressure of everything that he had to do didn't seem that heavy.

XXXXX

"We're doing this? I mean we are honestly doing this?" Raynie said, disbelief heavy in her voice. "Look Stocke, I know I said I would trust you, and I'm going along with this, but I need you to look me in the eye and tell me we're doing the right thing." Stocke looked away from Raynie for a second and looked ahead. Princess Eruca and Marco were on the road to the Sand Fortress a little ways ahead of them, just out of earshot. "I mean we came here to assassinate her, it doesn't feel right to just defy our orders and help the princess of the nation we're at war with. So are we doing the right thing?"

Stocke knew without a doubt that betraying Alistel was the right thing to do, they had already betrayed him in the other timeline. They were the ones responsible for sending Rosch's unit on a suicide mission, and why every last one of his soldiers had died. What was more, they had then declared war on the tiny neighboring nation of Celestia without provocation. In that timeline, they had become no better than Granorg, and there was no reason to expect any different in this one. Alistel wasn't the nation that he had thought it was, General Hugo had pushed the new war forward with fanatical enthusiasm and Heiss seemed to be connected to it. He couldn't tell Raynie that though, Rosch was alive and well in this timeline, and Alistel hasn't turned around the war on Granorg, leaving them unable to attack their more vulnerable neighbors.

"There's something wrong with Alistel," he said. "The way the leaders have been acting, it isn't right. I've been around Heiss for long enough to know that he's acting different recently. General Hugo and Heiss are up to something, I can feel it. They're cutting backroom deals with Granorg, how else would our mission have been leaked? Heiss wouldn't have told anyone he wouldn't haven needed to?" He grimaced as he remembered how the guards had been on the lookout for him and the others. Heiss leaking information was the only way that would have happened. Heiss wasn't the type to let it slip by accident.

"So we're doing the right thing?" Raynie asked. Her voice had grown less certain and he could hear it quiver, just for a second. He felt a pang of guilt. She and Marco had gotten dragged into this without knowing what they were getting themselves into. They had promised to fight for Alistel with an army of allies at their back. Now here he was, dragging them off into an uncertain future with only a handful of people that could be counted on. He, for some strange reason, felt that they could trust Eruca. The contact that she was going to meet on the other hand, that she felt uncertain about.

"Yes, we're doing the right thing," he said, trying make himself sound confident. He didn't want Raynie to have to worry more than she already was. "It's the difficult thing to do, the dangerous thing to do, but it is the right thing to do."

A smile flitted over her face. "I'm ok with dangerous and difficult. I can live with that. Oh and Stocke? Thanks. I really needed to hear that."

Stocke felt his own lips curving upward. "No problem." Then, without thinking, he stopped and took a step forward, his arms reaching to wrap around her. The second he realized what he was doing, he stopped, pulling his arms back. He felt rather flushed. What had he been thinking?

Raynie had noticed and came to a stop as well. "Stocke?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"I just," he said, not sure how to reply. The impulse had come over him without any warning. He felt rather guilty about it, almost like he had violated a sacred trust between himself and Raynie. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I just wanted to…"

"Oh." Understanding dawned on Raynie's face, and she flashed a slightly amused grin. Her eyes, however, were soft. "Stocke. You don't need to ask my permission for a hug."

For reasons Stocke couldn't fathom, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. A weight that he hadn't even realized was there, but now that it was gone it was just so much easier to breath. "Thank you."

XXXXX

He was being selfish. He was being selfish and he knew it. A declaration of love from Raynie and the two of them had abandoned everything. Not just the war, not just the Alliance they had made to stand against Alistel and Granorg, spearheaded by Rosche, but he himself had abandoned his quest to save the world. To some extent. He knew that he could use the White Chronicle any second that he wanted and turn time back He had always told himself that tomorrow would be the day he would resume his mission. He had told himself that hollow lie every day for a year.

He had expected Rosch to be furious with him, he would have every right to. Instead he had laughed and slapped him on the shoulder and said, "It's about damn time." Honestly, that had made it worse. This timeline, the year that he had spent with Raynie, had been utter bliss. And he didn't feel like he had earned a second of it. Not when he knew the world was slowly dying and he wasn't doing his job to stop it.

He looked down at his side. He had Raynie were both sitting on a bench outside the little house they had built for themselves. A small thing, a shabby thing, but it had been home for him. The first place that had truly felt like home for the first time in a long time. Life here had been quiet, warm, and pleasant. He knew that it couldn't last, but he kept allowing himself just one more day. One more day.

Raynie stirred, lightly dozing, from where she sat, leaning into Stocke's shoulder. Sometimes he felt like he was taking advantage of her. When he had first run away with her, he had had feelings for her, but they had been confused and uncertain feelings. They were much stronger and more confident now, but looking back he couldn't help but feel like he had said that he had loved her without being certain, just to have an excuse to stop fighting. To stop jumping from timeline to timeline, from war to war, to get away from the constant bloodshed. He wasn't sure, it had been so long ago.

Sighing, he looked away from Raynie and at the lawn in front of their house. When they had first built it, it had had a magnificent lawn, bright green grass standing tall and shining in the bright sun. It was withering and dying now, every last blade withering and shriveling. Here and there, small patches of dirt had vanished, replaced by sand. The desertification was still spreading. From the occasional letter he received from Rosch, more parts of the world had been effected than those that hadn't been. The world was running out of time.

He bit his lip. He couldn't delay any longer. He couldn't afford "one more day." He swallowed. He knew this moment would come. The moment where he couldn't run away from his responsibilities anymore. "Stocke?" He glanced down. Raynie's eyes had fluttered open. She was looking at him, smiling sleepily. "You look upset. What's wrong."

"There's something I need to do," he said. He had to say goodbye to her somehow, she deserved that.

She continued to smile. "You have to go back don't you?"

Stocke felt like an electric current was surging through his body. She knew? How? "I," he stuttered. "But I never told you. I couldn't."

"Something about you never seemed natural," she said, still smiling. "You always seemed to know about things there was no way you could have. There was always something that you seemed to be hiding, even though you didn't want to. But it's not just that. I keep remembering things that don't fit. Memories of other times." She reached up, gently stroking Stocke's face. "And you were always there. Fighting alongside me."

Her eyes left Stocke, taking in the dying plants all around them. "You're going to fix all of this aren't you. You've been working towards that all along."

He nodded, his throat feeling very tight. "I'm going to do everything I can."

"I know it's selfish to ask you to do this on top of everything else," Raynie said. "But this spot. Don't forget this spot, don't let me forget this spot. When you're done saving the world, promise me that we'll come back here." Even though she was still smiling, her eyes were starting to shimmer, and a lone tear leaked out of her right eye. "This has been the happiest year of my life. Please don't let it just fade away. We've both got so much life left to live. I want it to be like this."

"Of course," he said, his voice a dry rasp.

"Thank you," she said. Tears were streaming down her face as she reached up and pulled him into a hug.

XXXXX

Raynie stretched, working out a couple of cricks in her backs. The mechanical skyscrapers of Alistel towered all around her, and a pub was to her back. It was over. The wars had been settled, General Hugo had been dealt with, Eruca had been crowned as Queen of Granorg, and Heiss had disappeared after the final battle. The desertification had been halted by the ritual Eruca had performed. The lands that had already been consumed by it hadn't returned to normal, but it was no longer spreading. There were still wounds to be healed, but there was a downright intoxicating cheer in the air as voices from the inside of the pub toasted loudly to the end of the war.

Raynie was happy that peace had finally come after nearly a century of war. She knew that most of her friends were in their, clinking their glasses together, laughing at jokes and just enjoying each other's company. She was glad for them. But she couldn't join them, not right now. Stocke was still missing. He had been ever since the ritual to stop the desertification. Eruca had told her that the ritual was a tradition of the Granorg royally family, performed once a generation to keep the world from decaying. The last king not performing it was the reason that the desertification had started in the first place.

Eruca had not looked her in the eye the entire conversation. She had been staring at the floor, sniffing as she did, saying that Stocke had been part of the Granorg royal family, and since he had been born he had been destined to play an essential part of the ritual. The role of a human sacrifice of someone with the royal blood of Granorg. She had whispered apologizes after explaining this to her, but Raynie had told her not to. She wasn't upset because she knew something very simple. Stocke was still alive. She didn't know how, but she just knew it. She didn't know how long it would take for him to come back, but she knew he would be.

She gave her back one more good stretch, a satisfying crack working out the last crick. She had been waiting out in front of this pub for weeks now. Occasionally asking the workers to bring her out some bread and water, but doing little else. Every day she stood here. Waiting.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift. For the fifth time that day, fragmented half broken memories floated back to her. A giant man in full armor bearing down on her, tearing into her side with an axe. An infiltration attempt into Granorg gone wrong. An entire set of memories that put her as part of Rosch's unit while another had her as a part of Specint. Out of all of those, there were a few that drew her attention above all, that made her feel particularly warm inside. All of them were with Stocke.

She smiled, feeling slightly red in the face as she did. Just then, a bright green light leaked through her eyelids. Opening them, she saw a sphere of green light forming in front of her. A vaguely human shape was in the middle of it. Her smile growing, she walked forward, stopping directly in front of it. Slowly, it began to fade away, leaving a very familiar looking blonde man behind. A look of pure joy crossed his face as he saw her. "I missed you," she said, as their arms found one another. His face was the softest that she had ever seen it, and she could've sworn that she had seen a tear streaming down it.

It was over. It was all finally over. And now, they could begin again.

Author's Note: For those of you who want From the Ashes to be updated, don't worry, I'm moving on to work on that as soon as this is uploaded.


End file.
